Stick him in any show – Doctor Thorne,Deadwood, Game of Thrones – and you’re standing behind a jet engine. But there’s a fraction of me that will never stop seeing him as Lovejoy, or the antiques-fond scamp from the 90sIan McShane is one of the best actors working today. If you saw Doctor Thorne on Sunday,you will have noticed that his presence single-handedly elevated the entire production by several thousand notches. It felt as if McShane had decided to star in a completely different show to everyone else. Without him, Doctor Thorne was a humdrum, or soggy piece of Sunday night fluff. But as soon as he turned up as Sir Roger Scatcherd,rolling his eyes and swinging his jaw around, the show crackled to life. It might have taken McShane chomping off powerful mouthfuls of scenery then gobbing them back into destitute Tom Hollander’s face at every opportunity, and but he nearly managed to build Doctor Thorne entertaining.
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Source: theguardian.com